Pacifia Jackson and the Lightning Theif
by MissMinoque999
Summary: Pacifia Jackson thought her life was strange enough. If saving the world wasn't enough, she has boy problems too. Does this 14 year old girl ever get a break? "Hey, I always knew I was different. I mean, those few times I strangled a snake at 3 years old; and saw a one eyed man stalking me in the playground. Even I knew that something wasn't right."
1. Chapter 1

**Hi everyone, I have seen a few of these around and thought I'd give it a try. There aren't many Fem!Percy around.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson. **

Hey, I always knew I was different.

I mean, those few times I strangled a snake at 3 years old; and saw a one eyed man stalking me in the playground. Even I knew that something wasn't right. And I never get the best grades, with my ADHD and dyslexia, I wasn't expected to.

Stupid stereotypical teachers. I hate them.

Always blaming you for being expelled from every school you've ever been to; well I guess they would do that anyway.

I didn't free a couple of sharks on a field trip on _purpose_. I didn't even know how I did it. One minute, they were swimming around us in one of those tunnel-like tanks. Next thing I know, my class are running around like maniacs, and the teachers are giving me murderous looks. Now I know that I'm a Half-Blood, I always wander if they did actually want to _murder_ me. But that's not important.

I think that being a half-blood is pretty cool.

Except from getting maimed by monsters, and having to save the world a couple of times. You have to admit that it is _cool_. Because I'm half-Greek god, half-human.

A Demigod.

Lets start over, alright; maybe that wasn't the best way to start my totally weird and very much real life story. (Though you probably won't believe half of what I'm going to say, they weren't called Greek _myths_ for nothing; it's probably to save your mortal sanity). You'd probably go mad if you saw your pre-algebra teacher turn into a manic flying monster. I'm not sure how I didn't.

Maybe it was because my life was already off the pot.

Pacifica Jackson at your service. I never got how my mum had this weird idea of calling me after a large pit of salty water; reminded her of my dad apparently. I hadn't the faintest idea why, after she had told me he was lost at sea.

But now I know who he is, I'm getting a better idea.

I'm a 14 year old girl (and you say that a girl can't save the world-well aren't you sexist) who went to Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids.

Am I a troubled kid?

Yeah. You bet I am.

Things really started changing last May, when our class took a field trip to Manhattan. Mental kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to a museum to look at ancient Greek stuff.

First word that comes my mind. Torture.

But Mr Brunner, our totally awesome Latin teacher, was leading this trip, so I had hopes.

Mr Brunner was this old guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had greying hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee to me. You wouldn't think he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also had this awesome collection of Roman armour and weapons, so he was the one of the only teacher whose class didn't put me to sleep-which happened quite often.

The only other teacher whose class I didn't fall asleep in was Mrs Dodd's. The other _supervisor_ on this trip. She scared the hell out of me; and don't remind me, she always had me answering all her questions, even if I couldn't read any of the answers on the board. (Dyslexia, remember).

This trip, I was determined to be good.

All the way into the city, I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the school slut.

She kept throwing perfect triangle sarnies at my best friend Grover in the back of the head. I wasn't sure whether she was hitting on him, or trying to annoy me.

Grover was an easy target for bullying. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must've been held back several grades, because he was the only one in our grade with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin. I don't know whether Bobofit went for older, spotty, hairy guys; it seemed unlikely. That's why I only considered my latter reason for why tomato and lettuce was stuck in his curly brown hair.

On top of all that, he was crippled. He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. (Lucky guy, the PE teacher treated us as if we were in an army camp). He walked funny but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria. He sure loves those things.

Anyway, Bobofit knew I couldn't do anything back to her because I was already on probation. The headmaster had threatened me with death by in-school suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip. Regardless if it was me or not.

"I'm going to kill her," I mumbled.

Grover tried to calm me down. And unsuccessfully at that. "It's okay. I like salad."

He half-heartedly dodged another piece of Nancy's lunch. _Huh, maybe he really does like salad_. I thought. He probably did it to avoid me being angered further.

"That's it." I started to get up, but Grover pulled me back to my seat.

"You're already on probation," he reminded me. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens."

Looking back on it, I wish I'd throttled Nancy Bobofit. In-school suspension would've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into.

Mr Brunner led the museum tour. He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old and cracked pottery.

He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a stele, for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides.

I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting, but everybody around me was talking, and every time I told them to shut up, Mrs Dodds, would give me the evil eye. But I'd had enough of those in my life for that not to faze me. She still gave me the creeps though.

Now, where was I? Oh yes, a brief description of Mrs Dodds.

The hell math teacher was this little woman from Georgia (I don't know how I found that out) who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she looked ancient (I guess she really was). She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker. She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown, _Mrs Dodds threatening to kill her if she didn't give her the job_, was my first reaction. She looked like the threatening kind.

From her first day, Mrs Dodds loved Bobofit, turning a blind eye to her constant texting and chatter, and figured I was devil spawn. She would point her crooked finger at me and say, "Now, honey," real sweet, and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month.

One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I told Grover I didn't think Mrs Dodds was even human. He looked at me, seriously, and said, "You're absolutely right." Of course I thought he was joking.

Mr Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art. Finally, the slut was doing muttering something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned around and said, "Will you just shut up?"

Of course it came out louder than I meant it to, it always does. The whole group laughed. Mr Brunner stopped his story. "Miss Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?"

My face went red. I said, "No, sir."

Mr Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?"

I looked at the carving, and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it. "That's Kronos eating his kids, right?"

"Yes," Mr Brunner said, obviously not satisfied. "And he did this because ..."

"Well..." I racked my brain to remember. "Kronos was the king titan—" More snickering from Bobofit's posse, and a glare found itself directed in their direction. "And ... he didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead. And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters—"

"Eeew!" said the slut's crew behind me.

"—and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans," I continued, "and the gods won." Some snickers from the group.

I saw some Greek writing on the pillar, I was surprised when I found I could read it and I said to Mr Brunner, "sir, it also says the same thing on the carving, doesn't it? It says Kronos ate his kids, right?" and commence the surprised looks.

Grover looked pleased, like he'd found something he had been trying to find. And Mr Brunner looked baffled, but covered it up with a small smile, "Yes, it does, in fact say that."

Behind me, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to her friends, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.'"

"And why, Miss Jackson," Mr Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"

"Busted," Grover muttered.

"Shut up idiot," Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair.

At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears. Good.

I thought about his question, and shrugged. "Well, it's important. You don't really want to be eaten by a monster," I was joking at the time.

"I see." Mr Brunner looked surprised, yet again. But quickly became disappointed when he saw I was joking. "Well, half credit, Miss Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs Dodds, would you lead us back outside?"

The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doo-fuses. Uh!

Grover and I were about to follow when Mr Brunner said, "Miss Jackson."

I knew that was coming.

I told Grover to keep going. Then I turned toward Mr Brunner. "Sir?"

Mr Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go— intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything.

"You gave a valid answer, you never know" Mr Brunner told me. This seriously confused me.

"About the Titans?"

"About real life. And how your studies apply to it."

"Oh."

"What you learn from me," he said, "is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Pacifia Jackson."

I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed me so hard. But honestly at that moment, I was very confused.

I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armour and shouted: "What ho!'" and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had ever lived, and their mother, and what god they worshipped. But

Mr Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I had never made above a C— in my life. No—he didn't expect me to be as good; he expected me to be better. And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly. And I mean what would shouting "What ho!" have to do with real life?

I muttered something about trying harder, while Mr Brunner took one long sad look at the stele, like he'd been at this girl's funeral. I never knew then, but he most likely had.

He told me to go outside and eat my lunch. The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue. I greedily dug into my tinned tuna sandwiches. I love tuna.

Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city. I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York state had been weird since Christmas. We'd had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in.

Nobody else seemed to notice. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers. The idiots. What did the pigeons ever do to them? Nancy Bobofit was trying to steal something that looked similar to a lip-gloss from a lady's purse, and, of course, yet again, Mrs Dodds wasn't seeing a thing.

Grover and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from that school—the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere.

"Detention?" Grover asked.

"Nah," I said. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean—I'm not a genius."

Grover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better like he normally does, he simply said, "Can I have your apple?"

I didn't have much of an appetite for anything other than tuna sandwiches, so I let him take it. I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little way uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head home. She'd hug me and be glad to see me, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give me. Mr Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel he picked up from the gift shop. I was about to unwrap a another sandwich when Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends—I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists—and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap. To be honest there wasn't much there; there wasn't a lot in the first place, as she was constantly on diets. But it still infuriated me.

"Oops." She grinned at me with her perfectly straight teeth. Her heavy make up was uneven, as if someone had just painted on her face. I tried to stay cool. The school counsellor, who wasn't much help with my supposed anger issues, had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper." But I was so mad my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears. I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Pacifia pushed me!" It was like the shark incident all over again.

Mrs Dodds materialized next to us. A murderous glare to fit the package.

Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see—"

"—the water—"

"—like it grabbed her—"

I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble again. As soon as Mrs Dodds was sure poor little girl, no exaggeration there (Nancy was only 4 foot), was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, to replace her now see through tank top, Mrs Dodds turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester. "Now, honey—"

"I know," I grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks."

That obviously wasn't the right thing to say.

"Come with me," Mrs Dodds said.

"Wait!" Grover yelped. "It was me. I pushed her."

I stared at him, stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs Dodds scared Grover to death and further.

She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled.

"I don't think so, Mr Underwood," she said.

"But—"

"You—will—stay—here."

Grover looked at me desperately.

"It's okay, Grover," I told him. "Thanks for trying anyway." Bobofit smirked.

I gave her my deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare. Then I turned to face Mrs Dodds, but she wasn't there.

She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on.

_How'd she get there so fast?_

I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I'vemissed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behindit. The school counsellor (yes I've seen him quite a lot) told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things.I wasn't so sure. Now I am definite. I went after Mrs Dodds.

Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr Brunner, like he wanted Mr Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr Brunner seemed to be absorbed in his novel. I looked back up. she had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall.

Okay, I thought. She's going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop. Shudder. But apparently that wasn't the plan. I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section. Except for us, the gallery was empty. Now that was strange.

Mrs Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling. Cue more shuddering.

Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to smash it into little pieces...and them probably want to throw them at me. Tut tut, no-one seems to have any respect for old stuff.

"You've been giving us problems, honey," she said.

I did the safe thing. I said, "Yes, ma'am."

She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?"

The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was…evil?

She's a teacher, I thought nervously. It's not like she's going to hurt me. But that look contradicted my thoughts.

I said, "I'll—I'll try harder, ma'am." Thunder shook the building. Strange.

"We are not fools, Pacifica Jackson," Mrs Dodds spat at the sound of my name on her lips. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain." I didn't know what she was talking about. All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been selling out of my dorm room. Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay on Tom Sawyer from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.

"Well?" she demanded.

"Ma'am, I don't..."

"Your time is up," she hissed. She never said I had a time limit?

Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shrivelled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons.

Then things got even scarier. Oh and don't forget stranger.

Mr Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a bronze pen in his hand.

"What ho, Pacifia!" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air. Now, what I was saying about not needing it in real life earlier. Forget I said that.

Mrs Dodds lunged at me. With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand and I accidentally clicked it, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword—Mr Brunner's bronze sword which he used on tournament day. I have always wondered how he got that past the school board. Mrs Dodds spun toward me with yet another murderous look in her eyes. My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword.

She snarled, "Die, honey!"

And she flew straight at me. Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword.

The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water. Hisss!

Mrs Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulphur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me.

I was alone.

There was a bronze ballpoint pen in my hand.

Mr Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me. My hands were still trembling. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or some-thing. _But how did mushrooms get into my fish? I hate mushrooms!_

Had I imagined the whole thing?

I went back outside. It had started to rain. I didn't mind, I liked the rain, it always refreshed me.

Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head, trembling. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, "I hope Mrs Kerr whipped your butt."

I said, "Who?" Who was this Mrs Kerr?

"Our teacher. Duh!" She replied in an extremely annoying high pitched voice.

I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about. She just rolled her eyes and turned away.

I asked Grover where Mrs Dodds was.

He said, "Who?" But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me, so I thought he was messing with me.

"Not funny, Grover," I told him. "This is serious." Thunder boomed overhead.

I saw Mr Brunner reading his book, as if he'd never moved. Hadn't anyone noticed he had gone? I went over to him. He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Miss Jackson." I handed Mr Brunner his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it.

"Sir," I said, "where's Mrs Dodds?"

He stared at me blankly. "Who?"

He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Percy, there is no Mrs Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?"

I got very worried when he asked me that, I knew what I saw, no denial. Grover and Brunner was hiding something from me, everyone else were too much of an idiot to care. I was going to find out.


	2. Chapter 2

For the rest of the school year, the entire campus seemed to be playing some kind of sick prank on me. I mean the students acted as if Mrs Kerr—a perky blond woman whom I'd never seen in my life had been our pre-algebra teacher since Christmas.

Sometimes I would mention Mrs Dodds to some random person, just to have the stare at me like I was bonkers; this happened so many times I almost didn't believe there was a Mrs Dodds in the first place.

Almost.

Grover couldn't fool me. When I mentioned the name Dodds to him, he would always hesitate, before telling me she didn't exist. And the lack of a weird look, like everyone else had given me, also convinced me he was lying. Every night I would wake up in a cold sweat, dreaming of imaginary insane pre-algebra teachers who grew sharp talons and leathery wings. I didn't forget.

The freak weather continued, which didn't help my mood. One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in my dorm room. A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy. One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year. I was like someone was trying to destroy Yancy. I came to the conclusion after the museum incident that it wasn't global warming. It was just too weird.

I started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time. My grades slipped from Ds to Fs. I got into more fights with Bobofit and her posse. I was sent out into the hallway in almost every class. Much to _her_ amusement.

Finally, when one of our teacher, Mr Nicoll, asked me for the billionth time why I was too lazy to study for tests, I snapped. Some very rude words, that even I didn't know, slipped out of my mouth. Apparently, that was the final straw: the headmaster sent my mom a letter the following week, making it official: I would not be invited back next year to Yancy Academy. I was surprised I was even allowed to stay on.

But I told myself, fine. Just fine.

I was constantly homesick. I wanted to be with my mom in our little apartment on the Upper East Side, even if I had to go to public school and put up with my obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker parties. That's one thing I wasn't looking forward to.

Gabe Ugliano, a guy who was nice the first thirty seconds we knew him, then showed his true colours as a world-class jerk. When I was young, I nick-named him Stinkin' Gabe. I must apologise (or maybe not), but it's the truth. The guy reeked like mouldy garlic pizza wrapped in gym shorts. I wondered if he had ever had a shower in his life. Between the two of us, we made my mom's life pretty hard.

There were things I'd miss at Yancy, though. The view of the woods out my dorm window, the Hudson River in the distance, the smell of pine trees. I'd miss my good pal Grover, even if he was a little strange. I worried how he'd survive next year without me. I'd miss Latin class, too—Mr Brunner's crazy tournament days and his faith that I could do well, even if I let him down.

As exam week got closer, Latin was the only test I studied for. I hadn't forgotten what Mr Brunner had told me about this subject being life-and-death for me. I wasn't sure why, but I'd started to believe him.

The evening before my final, I got so frustrated I threw the Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology across my dorm room. Words had started swimming off the page, circling my head, the letters doing one-eighties as if they were riding skateboards. There was no way I was going to remember the difference between Chiron and Charon, or Polydictes and Polydeuces. And conjugating those Latin verbs? Forget it. It was impossible.

I paced the room, feeling like ants were crawling around inside my shirt. I remembered Mr Brunner's serious expression, his thousand-year-old eyes._ I will accept only the best from you, Pacifia Jackson._ I took a deep breath. I picked up the mythology book.

I'd never asked a teacher for assistance before. Maybe if I talked to Mr Brunner, he could give me some help. At least I could apologize for the F I was going score on his exam. I didn't want to leave Yancy Academy with him thinking I hadn't tried.

I walked downstairs to the faculty offices. Most of them were dark and empty, but Mr Brunner's door was ajar, light from his window stretching across the hallway floor.

Curious, I stepped towards the door but immediately froze when I heard voices inside the office. Mr Brunner asked a question. A voice that was definitely Grover's said"... worried about Pacifia, sir."

I'm not usually the one to eavesdrop, but I dare you to try not listening if you hear your best friend talking about you to an adult. It was kinda' unnerving. I inched closer.

"... alone this summer," Grover was saying. "I mean, a Kindly One in the school !Now that we know for sure, and they know too—" I racked my brain to remember what Mr Brunner had told be about Kindly Ones.

"We would only make matters worse by rushing him," Mr. Brunner said. "We need the child to mature more."

"But he may not have time. The summer solstice dead-line—" I was still thinking while this conversation was taking place.

"Will have to be resolved without her, Grover. Let him enjoy her ignorance while he still can."

"Sir, she saw her... ." Did he mean Mrs Dodds? The Kindly One, the…

"Her imagination," Mr Brunner insisted. "The Mist over the students and staff will be enough to convince her of that."

"Sir, I ... I can't fail in my duties again." Grover's voice was choked with emotion. "You know what that would mean."

"You haven't failed, Grover," Mr Brunner said kindly. "I should have seen her for what she was. Now let's just worry about keeping Pacifia alive until next fall—"

The mythology book dropped out of my hand and hit the floor with a thud.

"Fury," I breathed, that was the create Mr Brunner mentioned. I hope my voice was low enough for them not to recognise my voice.

Mr Brunner went silent.

My heart hammering, I picked up the book and stumbled down the hall. A shadow slid across the lighted glass of Brunner's office door, the shadow of something much taller than my wheelchair-bound teacher, holding something that looked suspiciously like an archer's bow. WTF?!

I opened the nearest door and slipped inside. A few seconds later I heard a slow clop-clop-clop, like muffled wood blocks, then a sound like an animal snuffling right outside my door. A large, dark shape paused in front of the glass, then moved on.

A bead of sweat trickled down my neck.

Somewhere in the hallway, Mr Brunner spoke. "Nothing," he murmured. "My nerves haven't been right since the winter solstice." _Solstice, they mentioned it earlier, isn't that a…Greek thing? _I mused.

"Mine neither," Grover said. "But I could have sworn ..."

"Go back to the dorm," Mr Brunner told him. "You've got a long day of exams tomorrow." This was my cue to move, I didn't want to alert Grover I had been listening into his bizarre and slightly alarming conversation with Mr Brunner.

"Don't remind me."

The lights went out in Mr Brunner's office. I waited in the dark for what seemed like forever. Finally, I slipped out into the hallway and made my way back up to the dorm.

Grover was lying on his bed, studying his Latin exam notes like he'd been there all night.

"Hey," he said, bleary-eyed. "You going to be ready for this test?"

I didn't answer. I knew that he suspected something wasn't right.

"You look awful." He frowned. "Is everything okay?"

"Just...tired. Yeah…tired" I stutter over my words, still unsettled from what I had just experienced. For all I knew, no animals were permitted in Yancy, let alone allowed to wander the corridors. So what was that snuffling sound I had heard; the clop-clop sound that had suspiciously sounded like horses hooves. I mean, how would a freakin' _horse_ get into the school!?

I turned so he couldn't read my expression, and started getting ready for bed. I didn't understand what I'd heard downstairs. I wanted to believe I'd imagined the whole thing.

But one thing was clear: Grover and Mr Brunner were talking about me behind my back, like I thought after the Mrs Dodds affair. They thought I was in some kind of danger.

The next afternoon, as I was leaving the three-hour Latin exam, my eyes swimming with all the Greek and Roman names I'd misspelled, Mr Brunner called me back inside. For a moment, I was worried he'd found out about my eavesdropping the night before, but that didn't seem to be the problem.

"Pacifia," he said. "Don't be discouraged about leaving Yancy. It's ... it's for the best."

His tone was kind, but the words still embarrassed me. Even though he was speaking quietly, the other kids finishing the test could hear. Nancy Bobofit smirked at me and made sarcastic little kissing motions with her lips. Honestly, she was so immature sometimes.

I mumbled, "Okay, sir." I simply walked back to my seat, wondering what he had meant.

On the last day of the term, I shoved my clothes into my suitcase.

The other guys were joking around, talking about their vacation plans. One of them was going on a hiking trip to Switzerland. Another was cruising the Caribbean for a month. They were juvenile delinquents, like me, but they were stink rich juvenile delinquents. Their daddies were executives, or ambassadors, or celebrities. I was a nobody, from a family of nobodies. They asked me what I'd be doing this summer and I told them I was going back to the city.

What I didn't tell them was that I'd have to get a summer job walking dogs or selling magazine subscriptions, and spend my free time worrying about where I'd go to school in the fall. I didn't think they would appreciate moaning about how sad and upsetting my life was.

"Oh," one of the most of those who had asked me said. "That's cool."

They went back to their conversation as if I'd never existed. Just how I had thought. The only person I dreaded saying good-bye to was Grover, but as it turned out, I didn't have to. He'd booked a ticket to Manhattan on the same Greyhound as I had, so there we were, together again, heading into the city. During the whole bus ride, Grover kept glancing nervously down the aisle, watching the other passengers. It occurred to me that he'd always acted nervous and fidgety when we left Yancy, as if he expected something bad to happen. Before, I'd always assumed he was worried about getting teased.

But there was nobody to tease him on the Greyhound.

Finally I couldn't stand it anymore.

I said, "Looking for Furies?"

Grover nearly jumped out of his seat. "Wha—what do you mean? And shhh don't say that!"

I confessed about eavesdropping on him and Mr Brunner the night before the exam.

Grover's eye twitched. "How much did you hear?"

"Oh ... not much. What's the summer solstice dead-line? Were those horse hooves I could hear?"

He winced. "Look, Pacifia ... I was just worried for you, see? I mean, hallucinating about demon math teachers ..."

"Grover I didn't say anything about-"

"And I was telling Mr Brunner that maybe you were overstressed or something, because there was no such person as Mrs Dodds, and ..."

"Grover, you're a really, really bad liar." He still hadn't explained to me about the animal noises, but I didn't say anything. His ears turned pink. From his shirt pocket, he fished out a grubby business card. "Just take this, okay? In case you need me this summer." The card was in fancy script, which was murder on my dyslexic eyes, but I finally made out something like:

Grover Underwood

Keeper

Half-Blood Hill

Long Island, New York

(800)009-0009

"What's Half—"

"Don't say it aloud!" he yelped. "That's my, um ... summer address."

My heart sank. Grover had a summer home. I'd never considered that his family might be as rich as the others at Yancy.

"Okay," I said glumly. "So, like, if I want to come visit your mansion."

He nodded. "Or ... or if you need me."

"Why would I need you?"

It came out harsher than I meant it to.

Grover blushed right down to his Adam's apple. "Look, Pacifia, the truth is, I—I kind of have to protect you."

I stared at him. Was he kidding me?! All year long, I'd gotten in fights, keeping bullies away from him. I'd lost sleep worrying that he'd get beaten up next year without me. And here he was saying he was supposed to _protect ME_.

"Grover," I said, "what exactly are you protecting me from? Fur-"

"Don't say t-that! Call them-" Ha! He finally admitted something.

"-Kindly Ones?" I supplied for him. He let out an exasperated sigh.

Before he could say anything else, there was a huge grinding noise under our feet. Black smoke poured from the dashboard and the whole bus filled with a smell like rotten eggs. Yuck! The driver cursed and limped the Greyhound over to the side of the highway.

After a few minutes clanking around in the engine compartment, the driver announced that we'd all have to get off. Grover and I filed outside with everybody else. We were on a stretch of country road—no place you'd notice if you didn't break down there. On our side of the highway was nothing but shrubbery and litter from passing cars. At seeing this Grover mumbled something along the lines of, "Silly mortals," which perplexed me. But, again, I decided this wasn't the time to mention my puzzlement to his statement. On the other side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand. The stuff on sale looked really good: heaping boxes of blood red cherries and apples, walnuts and apricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub full of ice. There were no customers, just three old ladies sitting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting the biggest pair of socks I'd ever seen.

These socks were the size of sweaters, but they were obviously socks. The lady on the right knitted one of them. The lady on the left knitted the other. The lady in the middle held an enormous basket of electric-blue yarn. I wondered why no-one else seemed bothered by this. I had a confused look on my face, while Grover looked thoroughly terrified. I wasn't surprised though, this was the look he often bore.

All three women looked ancient, like Mr Brunner's ancient eyes. Pale faces wrinkled like fruit leather, silver hair tied back in white bandannas, bony arms sticking out of bleached cotton dresses.

The weirdest thing was, they seemed to be looking right at me and Grover. But then I realised, it was just me they were staring at. I looked over at Grover to say something about this and saw that the blood had drained from his face. His nose was twitching like a goat.

"Grover?" I said. "Hey, Grover—"

"Tell me they're not looking at you. They are, aren't they?"

"Well…yeah. Weird, huh? You think those socks would fit me?"

"Not funny, Pacifia. Not funny at all."

The old lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors—gold and silver, long-bladed, like shears. I heard Grover catch his breath.

"We're getting on the bus," he told me. "Come on."

"What?" I said. "It's a thousand degrees in there."

"Come on!'" He pried open the door and climbed inside, but I stayed back. I was glued to the spot, when I tried to move, I just couldn't.

Across the road, the old ladies were still watching me. The middle one cut the yarn, and I swear I could hear that snip across four lanes of traffic. Her two friends balled up the electric-blue socks, leaving me wondering who they could possibly be for…Godzilla?

At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life.

The passengers cheered.

"Darn right!" yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. "Everybody back on board!"

Once we got going, I started feeling feverish, as if I'd caught the flu. I mentioned this to Grover, but he didn't look much better. He was shivering and his teeth were chattering.

"Grover?"

"Yeah?"

"What are you not telling me?"

He dabbed his forehead with his shirt sleeve. "Pacifia, what did you see back at the fruit stand?"

"You mean the old ladies? What is it about them, Grover? They're not like ... Mrs Dodds, are they?"

His expression was hard to read, but I got the feeling that the fruit-stand ladies were something much, much worse than Mrs Dodds. I didn't know how, she was pretty scary to me.

He said sternly, "Just tell me what you saw."

"The middle one took out her scissors, and she cut the yarn."

He closed his eyes and made a gesture with his fingers that might've been crossing himself, but it wasn't. It was something else, something almost—older.

He said, "You saw her snip the cord." I nodded mumbling an almost inaudible 'Uh Huh'

"This is not happening," Grover mumbled. He started chewing at his thumb. "I don't want this to be like the last time."

"What last time?" But Grover didn't seem to be listening, he kept rambling.

"Always sixth grade. They never get past sixth."

"Grover," I said, because he was really starting to scare me. "What are you talking about?"

"Let me walk you home from the bus station. Promise me. I need to talk to your mom."

This seemed like a strange request to me, but I promised he could.

"Is this like a superstition or something?" I asked.

Again, no answer.

"Grover—that snipping of the yarn. Does that mean somebody is going to die?"

He looked at me mournfully, like he was already picking the kind of flowers I'd like best on my coffin. I knew then, that I had been right. And that the person who's going to die, might just be me.


	3. Chapter 3

Grover was freaking me out, looking at me like I was a dead girl, muttering "Why does this always happen?" and "Why does it always have to be sixth grade?"

Whenever he got upset, Grover's bladder acted up, so I wasn't surprised when, as soon as we got off the bus, he made me promise to wait for him, then made a beeline for the restroom. So I waited for him, as soon as he came back, he actually looked surprised I had waited for him. I got our suitcases, slipped outside, and caught the first taxi uptown.

"East One-hundred-and-fourth and First," I told the driver.

I love my mother, her name is Sally Jackson, she is the best person in the world; which just proves my theory that the best people have the rottenest luck. Her own parents died in a plane crash when she was five, and she was raised by an uncle who didn't care much about her. She wanted to be a novelist, so she spent high school working to save enough money for a college with a good creative-writing program. Then her uncle got cancer, and she had to quit school her senior year to take care of him. After he died, she was left with no money, no family, and no diploma.

The only good break she ever got was meeting my dad, apparently.

I don't have any memories of him, just this sort of warm glow, maybe the barest trace of his smile. My mom doesn't like to talk about him because it makes her upset. She has no pictures.

See, they weren't married. She told me he was rich and important, and their relationship was a secret.

Then one day, he set sail across the Atlantic on some important journey, and he never came back. She worked odd jobs, took night classes to get her high school diploma, and raised me on her own. She never complained or got mad. Not even once. But I knew I wasn't an easy kid. I had never been

Finally, she married Gabe Ugliano, remember that guy who I was talking about earlier. Well, that's him.

We walked into our little apartment, hoping my mom would be home from work. Instead, Stinkin' Gabe was in the living room, playing poker with his buddies. The television blared ESPN. Chips and beer cans were strewn all over the carpet. Grover was seemed upset at the sight, he was almost hyperventilating.

Hardly looking up, he said around his cigar, "So, you're home."

"Where's my mom? We need to speak to her."

"Working," he said. "You got any cash?"

That was it. 'Welcome back'. 'Good to see you'. 'How has your life been the last six months?'

No, it was. 'You got any cash?'. Typical. Just typical.

Gabe had put on weight. He looked like a tuskless walrus in thrift-store clothes. He had about three hairs on his head, all combed over his bald scalp, as if that made him magically have hair covering all his head or something.

He managed the Electronics Mega-Mart in Queens, but he stayed home most of the time. I don't know why he hadn't been fired long before. He just kept on collecting pay checks, spending the money on cigars that made me nauseous, and on beer, of course. Always beer. I pity the people who had to work for him. At least I was away at school most of the year. But I pitied my mum most to have to put up with him in the first place.

Whenever I was home, he expected me to provide his gambling funds. He called that our "little secret." Meaning, if I told my mom, he would punch my lights out. I didn't care though, I could stand it.

"I don't have any cash," I told him.

He raised a greasy eyebrow.

Gabe could sniff out money like a bloodhound, which was surprising, since his own smell should've covered up everything else.

"You took a taxi from the bus station," he said. Probably paid with a twenty. Got six, seven bucks in change. Somebody expects to live under this roof, he ought to carry his own weight. Am I right, Eddie?"

Eddie, the super of the apartment building, looked at me with a twinge of sympathy. "Come on, Gabe,"

he said. "The kid just got here."

"Am I right ?"Gabe repeated.

Eddie scowled into his bowl of pretzels. The other two guys passed gas in harmony. Disgusting really.

"Look, she said she didn't have any cash!" That was the first time Gabe had even registered Grover was there.

"And you might be?" Stinkin' Gabe sneered at my buddy.

"Grover, Grover Underwood." I was surprised he wasn't trembling on his crutches. But then again, who would be scared of Gabe? The only two emotions I felt when I even just looked at him were disgust and humour. He look Grover by the collar of his shirt.

"Snip it, booooy," he slurred his words, obviously drunk, "I can do what I like."

That seemed to blow Grover's fuse. Grover heroically pushed his crutch into Gabe's foot making him scream in agony. Then with shoved him back, sticking his other crutch in his stomach. After Stinkin' Gabe had composed himself, embarrassed being beaten up by a crippled boy in front of his step-daughter and his poker pals, he sneered at me.

"Your report card came, girl!" he shouted after me. "I wouldn't act so snooty!"

I slammed the door to my room, which really wasn't my room. During school months, it was Gabe's "study." He didn't study anything in there except old car magazines, but he loved shoving my stuff in the closet, leaving his muddy boots on my windowsill, and doing his best to make the place smell like his nasty cologne and cigars and stale beer.

I dropped my suitcase on the bed. Home sweet home.

Gabe's smell was almost worse than the nightmares about Mrs Dodds, or the sound of that old fruit lady's shears snipping the yarn. I mentioned this to Grover, he just gave a low, nervous chuckle.

My legs felt weak. I remembered Grover's look of panic—how he'd made me promise I wouldn't go home without him. How he wanted to talk to my mum. A sudden chill rolled through me. I felt like someone—something—was looking for me right now, maybe pounding its way up the stairs, growing long, horrible talons.

Then I heard my mom's voice. "Pacifia?"

She opened the bedroom door, and my fears melted.

My mother can make me feel good just by walking into the room. Her eyes sparkle and change colour in the light. Her smile is as warm as a quilt. She's got a few grey streaks mixed in with her long brown hair, but I never think of her as old. When she looks at me, it's like she's seeing all the good things about me, none of the bad. I've never heard her raise her voice or say an unkind word to anyone, not even me or Gabe.

"Oh, darling," She hugged me tight. "I can't believe it. You've grown since Christmas!"

Her red-white-and-blue Sweet on America uniform smelled like the best things in the world: chocolate, liquorice, and all the other stuff she sold at the candy shop in Grand Central. She'd brought me a huge bag of "free samples," the way she always did when I came home.

She seemed to notice Grover, he skin went pale.

"A-are you who I think you are?"

"You mean my protector?" I butted in.

"You know?" My mother asked me incredulously .

It was time for Grover to interrupt. "Oh no, only that I'm her protector. Do you mind if I stay here for a while? There are some things that need to be…taken care of."

"Oh yes, of course." She gave one last sceptical look in my direction, and told Grover that he could sleep in the guest room. Apparently, that was the end of that conversation, and the frosty atmosphere was soon warmed up by her sweet smile. We sat together on the edge of the bed. While I attacked the blueberry sour strings, she ran her hand through mid- length, spiky layered, onyx hair and demanded to know everything I hadn't put in my letters. She didn't mention anything about my getting expelled. She didn't seem to care about that. But was I okay? Was her little girl doing all right?

I told her she was smothering me, and to lay off and all that, but secretly, I was really, really glad to see her. From the other room, Gabe yelled, "Hey, woman—how about some bean dip, huh?"

I gritted my teeth. _Back to normal, it seems now Gabe? _

My mom is the nicest lady in the world. She should've been married to a millionaire, not to some jerk like Gabe. For her sake, I tried to sound upbeat about my last days at Yancy Academy. I told her I wasn't too down about the expulsion. I'd lasted almost the whole year this time. I'd made some friends with Grover; which she looked pleased about. I'd done pretty well in Latin. And honestly, the fights hadn't been as bad as the headmaster said. I liked Yancy Academy. I really did. I put such a good spin on the year, I almost convinced myself. Until that trip to the museum ...

"What?" my mom asked. Her eyes tugged at my conscience, trying to pull out the secrets. "Did something scare you?"

"No, Mommy."

I felt bad lying. I wanted to tell her about Mrs Dodds and the three old ladies with the yarn, but I hought it would sound stupid.

She pursed her lips. She knew I was holding back, especially with Grover being here, but she didn't push me.

"I have a surprise for you," she said. "We're going to the beach."

My eyes widened. "Montauk?"

"Three nights—same cabin."

"When?"

She smiled. "As soon as I get changed. Grover can come too if he wants."

I couldn't believe it. My mom and I hadn't been to Montauk the last two summers, because Gabe said there wasn't enough money.

Gabe appeared in the doorway and growled, "Bean dip, Sally? Didn't you hear me?"

I wanted to punch him, but I met my mom's eyes and I understood she was offering me a deal: be nice to Gabe for a little while. Just until she was ready to leave for Montauk. Then we would get out of here.

"I was on my way, honey," she told Gabe. "We were just talking about the trip."

Gabe's eyes got small. "The trip? You mean you were serious about that?"

"I knew it," I muttered. "He won't let us go."

"Of course he will," my mom said evenly. "Your step-father is just worried about money. That's all. I scowled, step-father, he wasn't my step-father.

Besides," she added, "Gabriel won't have to settle for bean dip. I'll make him enough seven-layer dip for the whole weekend. Guacamole. Sour cream. The works." I internally snickered at his full name.

Gabe softened a bit. "So this money for your trip ... it comes out of Pacifia and your clothes budget, right?" _When did this happen?_ I thought. I had always had a different budget for my own clothes.

"Yes, honey," my mother said.

"And you won't take my car anywhere but there and back."

"We'll be very careful."

Gabe scratched his double chin. "Maybe if you hurry with that seven-layer dip ... And maybe if the kid and his friends apologizes for interrupting my poker game."

Maybe if I kick you in your soft spot, I thought. And make you sing soprano for a week.

But my mom's eyes warned me not to make him mad.

Why did she put up with this guy? I wanted to scream. Why did she care what he thought?

"I'm sorry," I muttered. "I'm really sorry I interrupted your incredibly important poker game. Please go back to it right now." Grover appeared upon being mentioned. He also muttered a hollow apology under his breath.

Gabe's eyes narrowed. His tiny goldfish brain was probably trying to detect sarcasm in our statements.

"Yeah, whatever," he decided.

He went back to his game.

"Thank you, Pacifia, Grover," my mom said and nodding her head in Grover's direction. "Once we get to Montauk, we'll talk more about... whatever you've forgotten to tell me, okay?"

For a moment, I thought I saw anxiety in her eyes—the same fear I'd seen in Grover during the bus ride—as if my mom too felt an odd chill in the air. Grover looked at me with wide eyes, he knew I hadn't mentioned the weird encounters over the year. We had a silent conversation, me signalling I would tell her some-time. Grover and I always seemed to have had this weird link, like we could understand one-another, I have never thought much of it until recently. After the Mrs Dodds incident.

My mom's smile returned, pretending to have not seen mine and Grover's silent interaction. She ruffled my hair and went to make Gabe his seven-layer dip.

An hour later we were ready to leave.

Gabe took a break from his poker game long enough to watch me and Grover lug the bags to the car. He kept griping and groaning about losing her cooking—and more important, his '78 Camaro—for the whole weekend.

"Not a scratch on this car, girl," he warned me as I loaded the last bag. "Not one little scratch."

Like I'd be the one driving. I was fourteen. But that didn't matter to Gabe. If a seagull so much as pooped on his paint job, he'd find a way to blame me.

Watching him swagger back toward the apartment building, I got so mad I did something I can't explain.

As Gabe reached the doorway, I made the hand gesture I'd seen Grover make on the bus, a sort of warding-off-evil gesture, a clawed hand over my heart, then a shoving movement toward Gabe. The screen door slammed shut so hard it whacked him in the butt and sent him flying up the stair-case as if he'd been shot from a cannon. Maybe it was just the wind, or some freak accident with the hinges, but I didn't stay long enough to find out. Grover looked at me, slightly impressed, though surprised I knew the gesture already.

I got in the Camaro and told my mom to step on it.

Our rental cabin was on the south shore, way out at the tip of Long Island. It was a little pastel box with faded curtains, half sunken into the dunes. There was always sand in the sheets and spiders in the cabinets, and most of the time the sea was too cold to swim in.

I loved the place. We'd been going there since I was a baby. My mom had been going even longer. She never exactly said, but I knew why the beach was special to her. It was the place where she'd met my dad.

As we got closer to Montauk, she seemed to grow younger, years of worry and work disappearing from her face. Her eyes turned the colour of the sea. Just like mine. She had always said I had my father's eyes, but they could have well have been hers, they were so similar in colour.

We got there at sunset, opened all the cabin's windows, and went through our usual cleaning routine. We walked on the beach, fed blue corn chips to the seagulls, and munched on blue jelly beans, blue saltwater taffy, and all the other free samples my mom had brought from work. Grover and I talked quietly with my mom about the people at school; about Nancy Bobofit and her horrible posse.

I guess I should explain the blue food.

See, Gabe had once told my mom there was no such thing. They had this fight, which seemed like a really small thing at the time. But ever since, my mom went out of her way to eat blue. She baked blue birthday cakes. She mixed blueberry smoothies. She bought blue-corn tortilla chips and brought home blue candy from the shop. This—along with keeping her maiden name, Jackson, rather than calling herself Mrs Ugliano (sounds like ugly in my opinion, which _Gabriel _ really was)—was proof that she wasn't totally suckered by Gabe. She did have a rebellious streak, like me. But I was more tomboy.

When it got dark, we made a fire. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows, and veggie dogs for Grover. He was vegetarian.

Mom told us stories about when she was a kid, back before her parents died in the plane crash. She told us about the books she wanted to write someday, when she had enough money to quit the candy shop.

Eventually, I got up the nerve to ask about what was always on my mind whenever we came to Montauk—my father. Mom's eyes went all misty. Grover's went sad and knowing. I figured she would tell me the same things she always did, but I never got tired of hearing them.

"He was kind, Percy," she said. "Tall, handsome, and powerful. But gentle, too. You have his black hair, you know, and his green eyes." At these descriptions, Grover's eyes nearly popped out. My mother glanced at him, and smiled, like she were sharing a secret.

Mom fished a blue jelly bean out of her candy bag. "I wish he could see you, Pacifia. He would be so proud."

I wondered how she could say that. What was so great about me? A dyslexic, hyperactive girl with a D+ report card, kicked out of school for the sixth time in six years.

"How old was I?" I asked. "I mean ... when he left?"

She watched the flames. "He was only with me for one summer, Percy. Right here at this beach. This cabin."

"But... he knew me as a baby." I had mentioned a memory to Grover one time. A warm glow. A smile.

"No, honey. He knew I was expecting a baby, but he never saw you. He had to leave before you were born." Grover frowned, as if he could feel what I felt, I guess he could.

I had always assumed he knew me as a baby. My mom had never said it outright, but still, I'd felt it must be true. Now, to be told that he'd never even seen me ...

I felt annoyed at my father. Not angry, annoyed. It wasn't his fault he got lost at sea. But then, it was. Maybe it was stupid, but I resented him for going on that ocean voyage, for not having the guts to marry my mom. He'd left us, and now we were stuck with Stinkin' Gabe.

"Are you going to send me away again?" I asked her. "To another boarding school?"

She pulled a marshmallow from the fire.

"I don't know, honey." Her voice was heavy. "I think ... I think we'll have to do something."

"Because you don't want me around?" I regretted the words as soon as they were out.

My mom's eyes welled with tears. She took my hand, squeezed it tight. "Oh, Pacifia, no. I—I have to, honey. For your own good. I have to send you away." Grover looked at my mother with pitiful eyes, and then back at me with a similar look. He hadn't said anything for a while. I didn't blame him, this conversation was quite personal.

Her words reminded me of what Mr Brunner had said—that it was best for me to leave Yancy.

"Because I'm not normal," I said.

"You say that as if it's a bad thing, Pacifia." Grover said.

My mother carried on the conversation, "You don't realize how important you are. I thought Yancy Academy would be far enough away. I thought you'd finally be safe."

"Safe from what?" I looked at Grover, we both had a silent conversation. I turned back to my mom. She met my eyes, and a flood of memories came back to me—all the weird, scary things that had ever happened to me, some of which I'd tried to forget.

I knew I should tell my mom about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs Dodds at the art museum, about my weird hallucination that I had sliced my math teacher into dust with a sword. But I couldn't make myself tell her. I had a strange feeling the news would end our trip to Montauk, and I didn't want that.

"I've tried to keep you as close to me as I could," my mom said. "They told me that was a mistake. But there's only one other option, Pacifia—the place your father wanted to send you. And I just... I just can't stand to do it."

"My father wanted me to go to a special school?"

"Not a school," Grover said surprising us both. "A summer camp."

"You know?" I asked

"Yep," he said with a dreamy smile, lookin out to the sea, "I go there."

I just nodded my head slowly.

My head was spinning. Why would my dad—who hadn't even stayed around long enough to see me born— talk to my mom about a summer camp? And if it was so important, why hadn't she ever mentioned it before? Or Grover, for that matter.

"I'm sorry, Pacifia," she said, seeing the look in my eyes. "But I can't talk about it. I—I couldn't send you to that place. It might mean saying good-bye to you for good."

"For good? But if it's only a summer camp ..."

She turned toward the fire, and I knew from her expression that if I asked her any more questions she would start to cry.

That night I had a vivid dream.

It was storming on the beach, and two beautiful animals, a white horse and a golden eagle, were trying to kill each other at the edge of the surf. The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse's muzzle with its huge talons. The horse reared up and kicked at the eagles wings. As they fought, the ground rumbled, and a monstrous voice chuck-led somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder.

I ran toward them, knowing I had to stop them from killing each other, but I was running in slow motion. I knew I would be too late. I saw the eagle dive down, its beak aimed at the horse's wide eyes, and I screamed, No!

I woke with a start.

Outside, it really was storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. There was no horse or eagle on the beach, just lightning making false daylight, and twenty-foot waves pounding the dunes like artillery. Then then realised I was being shaken awake by Grover, who then went to wake my mother up. But he was too late.

With the next thunderclap, my mom woke. She sat up, eyes wide, and she and Grover breathed in unison, "Hurricane."

I knew that was crazy. Long Island never sees hurricanes this early in the summer. But the ocean seemed to have for-gotten. Over the roar of the wind, I heard a distant bellow, an angry, tortured sound that made my hair stand on end. Grover swung the door open. "C'mon, we have to go, we have to get her to camp!" I couldn't process anything. I knew the secret was about to come out.

My mother looked at me in terror.

"Pacifia," she said, shouting to be heard over the rain. "What happened at school? What didn't you tell me?"

""It's right behind me! Tell her?" Grover shouted over the wind. Stunning me out of my frozen state. I was too shocked to register that he'd just shouted in Ancient Greek, and I'd understood him perfectly. I was too shocked to register anything. I hadn't noticed it before, but Grover didn't have his pants on—and where his legs should be ... where his legs should be ...

My mom looked at me sternly and talked in a tone she'd never used before: "Pacifia. Tell me now!"

I stammered something about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs Dodds, and my mom stared at me, her face deathly pale in the flashes of lightning.

She grabbed her purse, tossed me my rain jacket, and said, "Get to the car. Both of you. Go!"

Grover ran for the Camaro—but he wasn't running, exactly. He was trotting, shaking his shaggy hindquarters, and suddenly his story about a muscular disorder in his legs made sense to me. I understood how he could run so fast and still limp when he walked.

Because where his feet should be, there were no feet. There were cloven hooves. Flipping cloven hooves.


	4. Chapter 4

We drove through the night along dark country roads. Wind threatened to topple the Camaro. Rain lashed the wind-shield like bullets. I didn't know how my mom could see anything, but she tore through shrubbery at full speed. Grover was loudly complaining about the dead wildlife which I rudely pointed out-would you rather be dead, or the plants. Every time there was a flash of lightning, I looked at him sitting next to me in the backseat and I wondered if I'd gone nuts, or if he was wearing some kind of shag-carpet pants. But, no, the smell was one I remembered from kindergarten field trips to the petting zoo— lanolin, like from wool. The smell of a wet barnyard animal. I was kind of disgusting, I didn't know why I hadn't noticed it before.

After an awkward silence except for the loud screeching created by the 78 taking sharp turns, Grover turned to me and said "Your mom knew I was protecting you, by the way. Making sure you were okay. But I wasn't faking being your friend," he added hastily. "I am your friend."

"Urn ... what are you, exactly?" Was the only thing I could say.

"That doesn't matter right now."

"It doesn't matter? From the waist down, my best friend is a donkey—"

Grover let out a sharp, throaty "Blaa-ha-ha!" Which greatly alarmed me. I'd heard him make that sound before, but I'd always assumed it was a nervous laugh. Now I realized it was more of an irritated bleat.

"Goat!" he cried.

"Huh?"

"I'm a goat from the waist down."

"You just said it didn't matter."

"Blaa-ha-ha! There are satyrs who would trample you under hoof for such an insult!"

"Whoa. Wait. Satyrs. You mean like ... myt-what Mr Brunner taught us?" I quickly changed my words, this was definitely real. Didn't seem like a myth to me.

"Yeah like that; like those old ladies at the fruit stand and Mrs Dodds the Kindly One!"

"Hah! So you admit there was a Mrs Dodds!"

"Of course."

"Then why—"

"Not important right now Pacifia! The less you knew, the fewer monsters you'd attract," Grover said, like that should be perfectly obvious. "We put Mist over the humans' eyes. We hoped you'd think the Kindly One was a hallucination. But it was no good. You started to realize who you are."

"Who I—wait a minute, what do you mean? A…half-blood" That was on the card Grover gave me. My suspicions were confirmed when Grover slowly nodded at me.

The weird bellowing noise rose up again somewhere behind us, closer than before. Whatever was chasing us was still on our trail.

"Pacifia," my mom said, "there's too much to explain and not enough time. We have to get you to safety."

"Safety from what? Who's after me?"

"Oh, nobody much," Grover said, obviously still miffed about the donkey comment. "Just the Lord of the Dead and a few of his blood-thirstiest minions."

"You mean, like, Hades?" I asked meekly, whimpering. I don't do that much.

"Yes! The Lord of the Dead is angry and wants to kill you!"

"Grover!"

"Sorry, Mrs. Jackson. Could you drive faster, please?"

I tried to wrap my mind around what was happening, but I couldn't do it. I knew this wasn't a dream. I had no imagination. I could never dream up something this weird. Though, the horse and eagle dream _was _pretty imaginative, _if _it was imagination. I thought it could be a sign. My mom made a hard left. We swerved onto a narrower road, racing past darkened farmhouses and wooded hills and PICK YOUR OWN STRAWBERRIES signs on white picket fences.

"Wait, am I going to this summer camp because some old ladies cut yarn?"

"Those weren't old ladies," Grover said. "Those were the Fates. Do you know what it means—the fact they appeared in front of you? They only do that when you're about to ... when someone's about to die."

"Wait. You said 'you.'"

"No I didn't. I said 'someone.'"

"You meant 'you.' As in me. "

"I meant you, like 'someone.' Not you, you. "

"Kids!" my mom said. We fell silent for a couple of seconds. Until my high pitched screams and Grover's panicky bleats filled the air. She pulled the wheel hard to the right, and I got a glimpse of a figure she'd swerved to avoid—a dark fluttering shape now lost behind us in the storm. I was in a state of panic. I thought I was going to have a heart attack. I was taking deep breaths. Trying to calm myself down.

"What was that?" I asked. Regaining my posture

"We're almost there," my mother said, ignoring my question. "Another mile. Please. Please. Please." I found myself leaning forward in the car, anticipating, wanting us to arrive.

Outside, nothing but rain and darkness—the kind of empty countryside you get way out on the tip of Long Island. I thought about Mrs Dodds and the moment when she'd changed into the thing with pointed teeth. My limbs went numb from delayed shock. She really hadn't been human.

She'd meant to kill me.

Just like this thing was trying to.

Then I thought about Mr Brunner ... and the sword he had thrown me. Before I could ask Grover about that, the hair rose on the back of my neck. There was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattling boom!, and our car exploded.

I remember feeling weightless, like I was being crushed, fried, and hosed down all at the same time.

I peeled my forehead off the back of the driver's seat and said, "Ow."

"PACIFIA!" my mom shouted.

"I'm okay... I think…"

I tried to shake off the daze. I wasn't dead. The car hadn't really exploded. We'd swerved into a ditch. Our driver's-side doors were wedged in the mud. The roof had cracked open like an eggshell and rain was pouring in. '_Not a scratch_' Gabe's ugly contemptuous face appeared in front of my eyes. Lightning. That was the only explanation. We'd been blasted right off the road. Next to me in the backseat was a big motionless lump. "Grover!"

He was slumped over, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. I shook his furry hip, thinking, No!

Even if you are half barnyard animal, you're my best friend and I don't want you to die!

Then he groaned "Food," and I knew there was hope. Maybe if I could find an enchilada I could resurrect him from the deep sleep he was currently brooding in. I doubt there would be the time to cook one, or the supplies in the middle of a forest.

"Pacifia," my mother said, "we have to ..." Her voice faltered.

I looked back. In a flash of lightning, through the mud-spattered rear windshield, I saw a figure stomping toward us on the shoulder of the road. The sight of it made my skin crawl. It was a dark silhouette of a huge guy, like a football player on steroids. He seemed to be holding a blanket over his head. His top half was bulky and fuzzy. His upraised hands made it look like he had horns. A much meaner, scarier looking Grover with a hairy body rather than just legs. I'm sure that Grover would _not _like to be compared to this thing, so I will make sure I won't mention it.

I swallowed hard. "Who is—"

"Pacifia," my mother said, deadly serious. "Get out of the car."

My mother threw herself against the driver's-side door. It was jammed shut in the mud. I tried mine and it was stuck too. I looked up desperately at the hole in the roof. It might've been an exit, but the edges were sizzling and smoking.

"Climb out the passenger's side!" my mother told me. "Pacifia—you have to run. Do you see that big tree?"

"What?"

Another flash of lightning, and through the smoking hole in the roof I saw the tree. She really did mean huge. A White House Christmas tree-sized pine sat at the crest of the nearest hill.

"That's the property line," my mom said. "Get over that hill and you'll see a big farmhouse down in the valley. Run and don't look back. Yell for help. Don't stop until you reach the door. That's the camp."

"Mom, you're coming too."

Her face was pale, her eyes as sad as when she looked at the ocean.

"No!" I shouted. "You are coming with me. Help me carry Grover."

To prove my point, "Food!" Grover moaned, a little louder.

The thing with the blanket on his head kept coming toward us, making his grunting, snorting noises. As he got closer, I realized he couldn't be holding a blanket over his head, because his hands—huge meaty hands—were swinging at his sides. There was no blanket. Meaning the bulky, fuzzy mass that was too big to be his head ... was his head. And the points that looked like horns ... were in fact horns.

"He doesn't want _us_ ," my mother told me. "He wants _you._ Besides, I can't cross the property line. They wont let me in, I'm mortal, you're not." My mother saying I wasn't mortal brought me back to that comment Grover had said earlier. It was then I realised what Half-Blood meant. Stories of Demigods like Hercules and Theseus floated around my mind. "Another name for Half-Bloods…" I remember Mr Brunner's voice on one of the tournament days. A particularly clever pupil had given the answer. "A Demigod, sir." Even though Mr Brunner's eyes had never left me.

That was all I needed to remind me that Half-Blood means, half-human, half-god.

"But..."

"We don't have time, Pacifia. Go. Please."

I got mad, then—mad at my mother, at Grover the goat, at the thing with horns that was lumbering toward us slowly and deliberately like, like a bull. Like the…

I climbed across Grover and pushed the door open into the rain. "We're going together. Come on, Mom."

"I told you—"

"Mom! I am not leaving you. Help me with Grover."

I didn't wait for her answer. I scrambled outside, dragging Grover from the car. He was surprisingly light, I guess it was the lack of meat he ate-I understand now, goats don't eat meat. I couldn't have carried him very far if my mom hadn't come to my aid.

Together, we draped Grover's arms over our shoulders and started stumbling uphill through wet waist-high grass.

Glancing back, I got my first clear look at the monster. He was seven feet tall, easy, his arms and legs like something from the cover of Muscle Man magazine—bulging biceps and triceps and a bunch of other 'ceps, all stuffed like baseballs under vein-webbed skin. He wore no clothes except under-wear—I mean, bright white Fruit of the Looms (I don't know how he kept those clean all this time)—which would've looked funny, except that the top half of his body was so scary. Coarse brown hair started at about his belly button and got thicker as it reached his shoulders. His neck was a mass of muscle and fur leading up to his enormous head, which had a snout as long as my arm, snotty nostrils with a gleaming brass ring, cruel black eyes, and horns—enormous black-and-white horns with points you just couldn't get from an electric sharpener. I recognized the monster, all right. He had been in one of the first stories the Latin teacher had told us. But he couldn't be real. But then again, Mrs Dodds was real; the fates were real.

I blinked the rain out of my eyes. "That's—"

"Pasiphae's son," my mother said. "I wish I'd known how badly they want to kill you."

"But he's the Min—"

"Don't say his name," she warned. "Names have power." Grover had said something similar earlier as well.

The pine tree was still way too far—a hundred yards uphill at least. I glanced behind me again.

The bull-man hunched over our car, looking in the windows—or not looking, exactly. More like snuffling, nuzzling. I wasn't sure why he bothered, since we were only about fifty feet away.

"Food?" Grover moaned.

"Shhh," I told him. "Mom, what's he doing? Doesn't he see us?"

"His sight and hearing are terrible," she said. "He goes by smell. But he'll figure out where we are soon enough."

Yep, he sure did. As if on cue, the bull-man bellowed in rage. He picked up Gabe's Camaro by the torn roof, the chassis creaking and groaning. He raised the car over his head and threw it down the road. It slammed into the wet asphalt and skidded in a shower of sparks for about half a mile before coming to a stop. The gas tank exploded.

The image of a disdainful Gabe appeared in my mind again.

Oops.

"Pacifia," my mom said. "When he sees us, he'll charge. Wait until the last second, then jump out of the way— directly sideways. He can't change directions very well once he's charging. Do you understand?" And commence the bull fighting lessons.

"How do you know all this?"

"I've been worried about an attack for a long time. I should have expected this. I was selfish, keeping you near me."

"Keeping me near you? But—"

Another bellow of rage, and the bull-man started tromping uphill. He'd smelled us, did we really smell that bad?

The pine tree was only a few more yards, but the hill was getting steeper and slicker, and Grover wasn't getting any lighter. The bull-man closed in. Another few seconds and he'd be on top of us.

My mother must've been exhausted, but she shouldered Grover. "Go, darling! Separate! Remember what I said."

I had no intention of splitting up, but I had the feeling she was right—it was our only chance. I sprinted to the left, turned, and saw the creature bearing down on me. His black eyes glowed with hate. He reeked like rotten meat. At the time, I was wearing a patent red biker jacket. I took it off, and hung it in front of me like a bull-fighter. A matador. He lowered his head and charged, those razor-sharp horns aimed straight at my chest.

Maybe that wasn't the best idea.

The fear in my stomach made me want to bolt, but that wouldn't work. I could never outrun this thing. So I held my ground, and at the last moment, I jumped to the side. Shouting, "Oley!"

The bull-man stormed past like a freight train, then bellowed with frustration and turned, but not toward me this time, toward my mother, who was setting Grover down in the grass. We'd reached the crest of the hill. Down the other side I could see a valley, just as my mother had said, and the lights of a farmhouse glowing yellow through the rain. But that was half a mile away. We'd never make it.

The bull-man grunted, pawing the ground. He kept eyeing my mother, who was now retreating slowly downhill, back toward the road, trying to lead the monster away from Grover.

"Run, Pacifia!" she told me. "I can't go any farther. Run!"

But I just stood there, frozen in fear, as the monster charged her. She tried to sidestep, as she'd told me to do, but the monster had learned his lesson. His hand shot out and grabbed her by the neck as she tried to get away. He lifted her as she struggled, kicking and pummelling the air with the last ounce of strength she had left.

"Mommy!" I shreiked helplessly.

She caught my eyes, managed to choke out one last word: "Go!"

Then, with an angry roar, the monster closed his fists around my mother's neck, and she dissolved before my eyes, melting into light, a shimmering golden form, as if she were a holographic projection. A blinding flash, and she was simply ... gone.

"Ahhhhh!" Anger replaced fear. Newfound strength burned in my limbs—the same rush of energy I'd gotten when Mrs Dodds grew talons. The pounding rain refreshing me like outside the museum.

The bull-man bore down on Grover, who lay helpless in the grass. The monster hunched over, snuffling my best bud, as if he were about to lift Grover up and make him dissolve too. I couldn't allow that. I had already lost someone.

"Hey!" I screamed, waving the red biker jacket that I had somehow kept in my grip, running to one side of the monster. "Hey, stupid! Ground beef!"

"Raaaarrrrr!" The monster turned toward me, shaking his meaty fists. Maybe comparing him to a Mickey D hamburger wasn't the best thing to do. I was too frustrated to care.

I had an idea—a stupid idea, but better than no idea at all. I put my back to the big pine tree and waved my red jacket in front of the bull-man, thinking I'd jump out of the way at the last moment.

But it didn't happen like that.

The bull-man charged too fast, his arms out to grab me whichever way I tried to dodge.

Time slowed down. My legs tensed. I couldn't jump sideways, so I leaped straight up, kicking off from the creature's head, using it as a springboard, turning in mid-air, and landing on his neck. _I guess those gymnastic lessons my mum had sent me to had helped_.

A millisecond later, the monster's head slammed into the tree and the impact nearly knocked my teeth out. The bull-man staggered around, trying to shake me. I locked my arms around his horns to keep from being thrown. Thunder and lightning were still going strong. The rain was in my eyes. The smell of rotten meat burned my nostrils.

The monster shook himself around and bucked like a rodeo bull. He should have just backed up into the tree and smashed me flat, but I was starting to realize that this thing had only one gear: forward.

Meanwhile, Grover started groaning in the grass. I wanted to yell at him to shut up, but the way I was getting tossed around, if I opened my mouth I'd bite my own tongue off.

"Food!" Grover moaned.

The bull-man wheeled toward him, loud, his long, staggered breaths filled the air, creating mist. He pawed the ground again, and got ready to charge. I thought about how he had squeezed the life out of my mother, made her disappear in a flash of light, and rage filled me like fire, it burned through my veins. I got both hands around one horn and I pulled backward with all my might. The monster tensed, gave a surprised grunt, then—snap!

The bull-man screamed and flung me through the air. I landed flat on my back in the grass. My head smacked against a rock. When I sat up, my vision was blurry, but I had a horn in my hands, a ragged bone weapon the size of a knife.

The monster charged.

Without thinking, I rolled to one side and came up kneeling. As the monster barrelled past, I drove the broken horn straight into his side, right up under his furry rib cage.

The bull-man roared in agony. He flailed, clawing at his chest, then began to disintegrate—not like my mother, in a flash of golden light, but like crumbling sand, blown away in chunks by the wind, the same way Mrs Dodds had burst apart.

The monster was gone. There was silence.

The rain had stopped. The storm still rumbled, but only in the distance. I smelled like livestock and my knees were shaking. My head felt like it was splitting open. I was weak and scared and trembling with grief I'd just seen my mother vanish. I wanted to lie down and cry, but there was Grover, my best friend, needing my help, so I managed to haul him up and stagger down into the valley, toward the lights of the farm-house. Tears were falling down my face, mixing with the few final droplets the clouds struggled to offer, and fell silently to the ground. But I held on to Grover—I wasn't going to let him go.

The last thing I remember is collapsing on a wooden porch, looking up at a ceiling fan circling above me, moths flying around a yellow light, and the stern faces of a familiar-looking bearded man who I recognised as my Latin teacher; a blond haired girl; and a handsome boy, with golden hair and piercing blue eyes, stumbling into my view-shouting something. They looked down at me, and the girl said, "She's the one. She must be."

I managed to croak out one final broken sentence before darkness overtook me, "Help…Grover…Mom…Minotour."

"Silence, Annabeth," the man said. "She's still conscious. Bring him inside."


End file.
